US Capitol shooting: Police kill woman after she rams WH barricades, no weapon found

Capitol Hill police are seen at the site of a shooting October 3, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.(AFP Photo / Mandel Ngan) / AFP

Gunshots rang out near the US Capitol Building in Washington DC Thursday afternoon, with police fatally shooting a female suspect who led them on a pursuit then rammed a security barrier near the White House.

Miriam Carey of Stamford, Connecticut was pronounced dead after
local police fired multiple shots into her black sedan as she
tried to flee through the streets of the nation’s capital. Carey,
a 34-year-old African American woman, traveled with a
one-year-old child that was taken from the scene unharmed and
placed in protective custody.

Her identity was first reported by NBC News. Investigators told
various media outlets the car was registered to Carey and there
is no reason to believe she was not behind the wheel. Friends
described Carey as a caring mother who may have endured a head
injury.

Carey worked as a dental hygienist for Dr. Brian Evans of Hamden,
Connecticut, until about a year ago. Evans told The New York
Times Carey had "a bit of a temper" but "nothing
unusual, nothing that would ever lead us to think she would ever
do anything like this."

Authorities initially said she suffered from a "mental
illness" but Carey's mother, Idella, later came forward to
say Miriam suffered from a common form of depression that impacts
women who recently gave birth.

"She had post-partum depression after having the baby [in
August]," Idella Carey told ABC. "A few months later, she
got sick. She was depressed...She was hospitalized."

Police officials said Thursday’s crime scene was the result of an
“isolated incident” and not a terrorist attack.

What prompted the incident at approximately 2pm EST has not been
made public, but witnesses told reporters that Carey appeared to
have been pulled over near the Capitol Building when she tried to
escape.

“The sedan slammed in reverse, backed up, and smashed into one
of the cruisers and did a 180, and took off around the south side
of the Capitol,” Frank Swing, a government employee on
furlough who witnessed Thursday’s events, told Reuters.

“It was like boom, boom, boom, something like that,” said
Peter Plocki, an employee at the Department of Transportation on
leave because of the government shutdown.

The car was quickly blocked in again, jammed between a number of
patrol cars and a security barrier installed after the terrorist
attacks on September 11, 2001. Then came the gunshots.

Officers opened fire on the vehicle in at least two locations:
first near Garfield Circle, a traffic circle on the southwest
side of the city, and then again at Maryland Avenue and Second
Street SE. A weapon was not found upon a later examination of
Carey’s vehicle. The final episode, part of which was captured on
video, is estimated to have lasted approximately 20
seconds.

One police officer was hospitalized following Thursday’s events
but authorities said the 23-year veteran of the force will
survive without serious injury. He was hurt in a car crash, not
as a result of the shooting and released by Thursday night.

“The suspect in the vehicle, we do know, was struck by gunfire
and at this point has been pronounced [dead],” Metropolitan
police chief Cathy Lanier said in an evening press
conference.

Witnesses inside the Capitol said they could hear the shots, all
of which were fired by police, from the Senate floor. The area
was placed on a temporary lockdown and police were met with a
standing ovation in the House of Representatives when the freeze
was lifted.

Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told the Associated Press
he was briefed by the Department of Homeland Security. Upon being
asked whether the suspect was armed, he said, “I don’t think
she was. There was no return fire.”

Investigators told the public that the pursuit may have been
worse had it not been for the barriers near the White
House.

“The perimeters worked,” said DC Police chief Cathy Lanier
during the press conference. “They did exactly what they were
supposed to do.”